GKA Innovation limited

privacy policy 

Introduction

Welcome to GKA Innovation Limited’s privacy policy.

GKA Innovation respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data.

  • Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how GKA Innovation collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website including any data you may provide when you purchase a service or contact us via email and/or telephone correspondence.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Controller

GKA Innovation Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “GKA Innovation”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager  on

Email address: info@gkainnovation.com

Postal address:  Vauxhall Office – Office 328, ChinaWorks, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ 

Telephone number: 0207 603 6626

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current.  Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications.  Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.  We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements.  When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit. 

  • The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.  It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose.  Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data).  Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with services).  In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

  • How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions.  You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise.  
  • Automated technologies or interactions.  As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns.  We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our Cookie Policy below for further details.
  • How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to.  Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you. Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

 

  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience.  We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests.  We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).  You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

 

  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation. Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so.  We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.  Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity

Type of data

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

To register you as a new customer

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

Performance of a contract with you

To process and deliver the service you have ordered including:

(a) Manage payments, fees and charges

(b) Collect and recover money owed to us

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Transaction

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Usage

(d) Technical

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Technical

(b) Usage

a) Consent (for non-essential cookies – including Google Analytics or similar technologies to enable us to understand how the website is used)

b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(d) Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical and Usage  Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you.  This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing. 

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.  If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

  • Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above, within the section called ‘Purposes for which we will use your personal data’:

  • External Third Parties: 
  • FBM Pro SARL, acting as a sub-processor based in Morocco who provides support in relation to the following services for the clients of GKA Innovation: 
  1. Liaising with clients and/or their accountants in order to request appropriate financial information to complete R&D Tax Relief claims, Patent Box Tax Relief claims, Land Remediation Tax Relief claims and Grant Applications. This list can be expanded at the discretion of GKA Innovation.                      
  2. Processing financial data into the appropriate template in order to complete R&D Tax Relief claims, Patent Box Tax Relief claims, Land Remediation Tax Relief claims and Grant Applications;                
  3. Attending videocalls with clients in order to apportion their expenditure appropriately for the above services using the populated template;          
  4. Using the apportioned cost information in the template in order to complete the claims mentioned in (i) above, to a high quality with a clear audit trail, allowing a reviewer from GKA Innovation to review appropriately;                     
  5. Reviewing the executive summary tables, nested financial tables and cost narratives for the supporting reports of the claims mentioned in (i) above, in order to ensure there are no mistakes, no sensitive personal information is disclosed in line with GDPR requirements, and the financial information is correctly reflected;               
  6. Preparing submission instructions that are reflective of the claims mentioned in (i) above, send submission emails, R&D reports and submission instructions to GKA Innovation’s clients’ accountants, reviewing amended corporation tax computations, returns and supplementary forms following provision of the instructions, and liaising with accountants in order to make sure they correctly reflect the claims being sought;
  7. In the event that an accountant of a client cannot submit a claim, producing a scanned manually completed CT600, CT600L and accompanying amended corporation tax computation and submitting the claim to HMRC by email; and
  8. In the event of an enquiry or compliance check into any of the claims listed in (i) above, preparing responses to any queries with financial elements and implementing any changes to these following review by the client.

We may have to share your personal data with third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets or from whom we may receive investment.  Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them.  If a change happens in the ownership of our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.  We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

  • International transfers

We engage an external third party sub-contractor based in Morocco so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.  For further details, please contact us to request the International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) and the Transfer Risk Assessment (TRA) entered into between the parties in March 2023 (specifically in relation to the appointment of a sub-contractor based in Morocco).

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK.

  • Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.  In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.  They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

  • Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements.  We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity and Transaction Data) for seven years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request Erasure in Your Legal Rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

  • Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.  

You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”).  This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.  This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.  You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law.  Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms.  You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.  In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data.  This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
  • If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.
  • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
  • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.  We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.  Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data.  However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.  If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you.  We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us on. info@gkainnovation.com

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights).  However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive.  Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights).  This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.  We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month.  Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests.  In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.